Coelebs In Search of a Wife Part 12

Mr. Tyrrel, by his observations, soon enabled us to discover that his religion had altered nothing but his language. He seemed evidently more fond of controversy than of truth, and the whole turn of his conversation indicated that he derived his religious security rather from the adoption of a party, than from the implantation of a new principle. "His discourse is altered," said Mr. Stanley to me afterward, "but I greatly fear his heart and affections remain unchanged."

Mr. Stanley contrived, for the sake of his two academical guests, particularly young Tyrrel, to divert the conversation to the subject of learning, more especially clerical learning.

In answer to a remark of mine on the satisfaction I had felt in seeing such a happy union of learning and piety in two clergymen who had lately dined at the Grove, Mr. Stanley said, "Literature is an excellent thing, when it is not the best thing a man has. It can surely be no offense to our Maker to cultivate carefully his highest natural gift, our reason.

In pious men it is peculiarly important, as the neglect of such cultivation, in certain individuals, has led to much error in religion, and given much just offense to the irreligious, who are very sharp-sighted to the faults of pious characters. I therefore truly rejoice to see a higher tone of literature now prevailing, especially in so many of our pious young divines; the deficiency of learning in some of their well-meaning predecessors having served to bring not only themselves, but religion also, into contempt, especially with men who have only learning."

"I say nothing," remarked Mr. Tyrrel, "against the necessity of learning in a lawyer, because it may help him to lead a judge, and to mislead a jury; nor in a physician, because it may advance his credit by enabling him to conceal the deficiencies of his art; nor in a private gentleman, because it may keep him out of worse mischief. But I see no use of learning in the clergy. There is my friend Dr. Barlow. I would willingly give up all his learning, if he would go a little deeper into the doctrines he professes to preach."

"Indeed," said Mr. Stanley, "I should think Dr. Barlow's various knowledge of little value, did he exhibit the smallest deficiency in the great points to which you allude. But when I am persuaded that his learning is so far from detracting from his piety that it enables him to render it more extensively useful, I can not wish him dispossessed of that knowledge which adorns his religion without diminishing its good effects."

"You will allow," said Mr. Tyrrel, "that those first great publishers of Christianity, the Apostles, had none of this vain learning."

"I admit," said Mr. Stanley, "that it is frequently pleaded by the despisers of learning, that the Apostles were illiterate. The fact is too notorious, and the answer too obvious to require to be dwelt upon.

But it is unfortunately adduced to ill.u.s.trate a position to which it can never apply, the vindication of an unlettered clergy. It is a hackneyed remark, but not the less true for being old, that the wisdom of G.o.d chose to accomplish the first promulgation of the gospel by illiterate men, to prove that the work was his own, and that its success depended not on the instruments employed, but on the divinity of the truth itself. But if the Almighty chose to establish his religion by miracles, he chooses to carry it on by means. And he no more sends an ignorant peasant or fisherman to instruct men in Christianity now, than he appointed a Socrates or a Plato to be its publisher at first. As, however, there is a great difference in the situations, so there may be a proportionate difference allowed in the attainments of the clergy. I do not say it is necessary for every village curate to be a profound scholar, but as he may not always remain in obscurity, there is no necessity for his being a contemptible one."

Sir John remarked, that what has been said of those who affect to despise birth, has been applied also to those who decry learning; neither is ever undervalued except by men who are dest.i.tute of them; and it is worthy of observation, that as literature and religion both sunk in the dark ages, so both emerged at the same auspicious era.

Mr. Stanley finding that Dr. Barlow was not forward to embark in a subject which he considered as rather personal, said, "It is presumptuous to observe, that the Apostles were unlettered men, yet those instruments who were to be employed in services singularly difficult, the Almighty condescended partly to fit for their peculiar work by great human attainments. The Apostle of the Gentiles was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel; and Moses, who was destined to the high office of a great legislator, was instructed in all the wisdom of the most learned nation then existing. The Jewish law-giver, though under the guidance of inspiration itself, did not fill his station the worse for this preparatory instruction. To how important a use the Apostle converted _his_ erudition, we may infer from his conduct in the most learned and polished a.s.sembly in the world. He did not unnecessarily exasperate the polite Athenians, by coa.r.s.e upbraiding, or illiterate clamor, but he attacked them on their own ground. With what discriminating wisdom, with what powerful reasoning did he unfold to them that G.o.d whom they ignorantly worshiped! With what temper, with what elegance, did he expose their shallow theology! Had he been as unacquainted with _their_ religion, as they were with _his_, he had wanted the appropriate ground on which to build his instruction. He seized on the inscription of their own pagan altar, as a text from which to preach the doctrine of Christianity. From his knowledge of their errors, he was enabled to advance the cause of truth. He made their poetry, which he quoted, and their mythology which he would not have been able to explode, if he had not understood it, a thesis from which to deduce the doctrine of the Resurrection; thus softening their prejudices, and letting them see the infinite superiority of that Christianity which he enforced, to the mere learning and mental cultivation on which they so highly valued themselves. By the same sober discretion, acute reasoning, and graceful elegance, he afterward obtained a patient hearing, and a favorable judgment from King Agrippa."

"It has always appeared to me," returned Dr. Barlow, "that a strong reason why the younger part of a clergyman's life should be in a good measure devoted to learning is, that he may afterward discover its comparative vanity. It would have been a less difficult sacrifice for St. Paul to profess that he renounced all things for religion, if he had had nothing to renounce; and to count all things as dross in the comparison, if he had had no gold to put in the empty scale. Gregory n.a.z.ianzen, one of the most accomplished masters of Greek literature, declared that the chief value which he set upon it was, that in possessing it, he had something of worth to esteem as nothing in comparison of Christian truth. And it is delightful to hear Selden and Grotius, and Pascal and Salmasius, whom I may be allowed to quote, without being suspected of professional prejudice, as none of them were clergymen, while they warmly recommended to others that learning of which they themselves were the most astonishing examples, at the same time dedicating their lives to the advancement of religion. It is delightful, I say, to hear them acknowledge that their learning was only valuable as it put it in their power to promote Christianity, and to have something to sacrifice for its sake."

"I can willingly allow," said Mr. Tyrrel, "that a poet, a dramatic poet especially, may study the works of the great critics of antiquity with some profit; but that a Christian writer of sermons can have any just ground for studying a pagan critic, it is to me quite inconceivable."

"And yet, sir," replied Mr. Stanley, "a sermon is a work which demands regularity of plan, as well as a poem. It requires, too, something of the same unity, arrangement, divisions, and lucid order as a tragedy; something of the exordium and the peroration which belong to the composition of the orator. I do not mean that he is constantly to exhibit all this, but he should always understand it. And a discreet clergyman, especially one who is to preach before auditors of the higher rank, and who, in order to obtain respect from them, wishes to excel in the art of composition, will scarcely be less attentive to form his judgment by some acquaintance with Longinus and Quintilian than a dramatic poet. A writer of verse, it is true, may please to a certain degree by the force of mere genius, and a writer of sermons will instruct by the mere power of his piety; but neither the one nor the other will ever write well, if they do not possess the principles of good writing, and form themselves on the models of good writers."

"Writing," said Sir John, "to a certain degree is an art, or, if you please, a trade. And as no man is allowed to set up in an ordinary trade till he has served a long apprenticeship to its _mysteries_ (the word, I think, used in indentures), so no man should set up for a writer till he knows somewhat of the mysteries of the art he is about to practice. He may, after all, if he want talents, produce a vapid and inefficient book; but possess what talents he may, he will, without knowledge, produce a crude and indigested one."

Mr. Tyrrel, however, still insisted upon it, that in a Christian minister the l.u.s.tre of learning is tinsel, and human wisdom folly.

"I am entirely of your opinion," returned Mr. Stanley, "if he rest in his learning as an _end_ instead of using it as a _means_; if the fame, or the pleasure, or even the human profit of learning be his ultimate object. Learning in a clergyman without religion is dross, is nothing; not so religion without learning. I am persuaded that much good is done by men who, though deficient in this respect, are abundant in zeal and piety; but the good they do arises from the exertion of their piety, and not from the deficiency of their learning. Their labors are beneficial from the talent they exercise, and not from their want of another talent. The Spirit of G.o.d can work, and often does work, by feeble instruments, and divine truth by its own omnipotent energy can effect its own purposes. But particular instances do not go to prove that the instrument ought not to be fitted, and polished, and sharpened for its allotted work. Every student should be emulously watchful that he do not diminish the stock of professional credit by his idleness; he should be stimulated to individual exertion by bearing in mind that the English clergy have always been allowed by foreigners to be the most learned body in the world."

Dr. Barlow was of opinion that what Mr. Stanley had said of the value of knowledge, did not at all militate against such fundamental prime truths as--"This is life eternal to _know_ G.o.d and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. I desire to _know_ nothing, save Jesus Christ. The natural man can not _know_ the things of the Spirit of G.o.d. The world by wisdom _knew_ not G.o.d;" and a hundred other such pa.s.sages.

"Ay, Doctor," said Mr. Tyrrel, "now you talk a little more like a Christian minister. But from the greater part of what has been a.s.serted, you are all of you such advocates for human reason and human learning as to give an air of paganism to your sentiments."

"Surely," said Mr. Stanley, "it does not diminish the utility, though it abases the pride of learning, that Christianity did not come into the world by human discovery, or the disquisitions of reason, but by immediate revelation. Those who adopt your way of thinking, Mr. Tyrrel, should bear in mind that the work of G.o.d, in changing the heart, is not intended to supply the place of the human faculties. G.o.d expects, in his most highly favored servants, the diligent exercise of their natural powers; and if any human being has a stronger call for the exercise of wisdom and judgment than another, it is a religious clergyman.

Christianity does not supersede the use of natural gifts, but turns them into their proper channel.

"One distinction has often struck me. The enemy of mankind seizes on the soul through the medium of the pa.s.sions and senses: the divine friend of man addresses him through his rational powers--_the eyes of your understanding being enlightened_, says the Apostle."

Here I ventured to observe, that the highest panegyric bestowed on one of the brightest luminaries of our church is, that his name is seldom mentioned without the epithet _judicious_ being prefixed to it. Yet does Hooker want fervor? Does Hooker want zeal? Does Hooker want courage in declaring the whole counsel of G.o.d?

"I hope," said Sir John, "we have now no clergymen to whom we may apply the biting sarcasm of Dr. South on some of the popular but illiterate preachers of the opposite party in his day, 'that there was all the confusion of Babel without the gift of tongues.'"

"And yet," returned Mr. Stanley, "that party produced some great scholars, and many eminently pious men. But look back to that day, and especially to the period a little antecedent to it, at those prodigies of erudition, the old bishops and other divines of our church. They were, perhaps, somewhat too profuse of their learning in their discourses, or rather they were so brimful, that they involuntarily overflowed. A juster taste, in our time, avoids that lavish display which then not only crowded the margin, but forced itself into every part of the body of the work. The display of erudition might be wrong, but one thing is clear, it proved they had it; and, as Dryden said, when he accused of having too much wit, 'after all, it is a good crime.'"

"We may justly," said Dr. Barlow, "in the refinement of modern taste, censure their prolixity, and ridicule their redundancies; we may smile at their divisions, which are numberless, and at their subdivisions, which are endless; we may allow that this labor for perspicuity sometimes produced perplexity. But let us confess they always went to the bottom of whatever they embarked in. They ransacked the stores of ancient learning, and the treasures of modern science, not to indulge their vanity by obtruding their acquirements, but to prove, to adorn, and to ill.u.s.trate the doctrine they delivered. How incredible must their industry have been, when the bare transcript of their voluminous folios seems alone sufficient to have occupied a long life?"

"The method," said I, "which they adopted, of saying every thing that could be said on all topics, and exhausting them to the very dregs, though it may and does tire the patience of the reader, yet it never leaves him ignorant; and of two evils, had not an author better be tedious than superficial? From an overflowing vessel you may gather more indeed than you want, but from an empty one you can gather nothing."

"It appears to me," said Mr. Tyrrel, "that you wish to make a clergyman every thing but a Christian, and to bestow upon him every requisite except faith."

"G.o.d forbid that I should make any comparison between human learning and Christian principle," replied Mr. Stanley; "the one is indeed lighter than the dust of the balance, when weighed against the other. All I contend for is, that they are not incompatible, and that human knowledge, used only in subserviency to that of the Scriptures, may advance the interests of religion. For the better elucidation of those Scriptures, a clergyman should know not a little of ancient languages.

Without some insight into remote history and antiquities, especially the Jewish, he will be unable to explain many of the manners and customs recorded in the sacred volume. Ignorance on some of these points has drawn many attacks on our religion from skeptical writers. As to a thorough knowledge of ecclesiastical history, it would be superfluous to recommend that, it being the history of his own immediate profession. It is therefore requisite, not only for the general purposes of instruction, but that he may be enabled to guard against modern innovation, by knowing the origin and progress of the various heresies with which the Church in all ages has been infested."

"But," said Mr. Tyrrel, "he may be thoroughly acquainted with all this, and not have one spark of light."

"He may indeed," said the Doctor; "with deep concern I allow it. I will go further. The pride of learning, when not subdued by religion, may help to extinguish that spark. Reason has been too much decried by one party and too much deified by the other. The difference between reason and revelation seems to be the same as between the eye and the light; the one is the organ of vision, the other the source of illumination."

"Take notice, Stanley," observed Mr. Tyrrel, "that if I can help it, I'll never attend your accomplished clergyman."

"I have not yet completed the circle of his accomplishments," said Mr.

Stanley, smiling; "besides what we call book learning, there is another species of knowledge in which some truly good men are sadly deficient: I mean an acquaintance with human nature. The knowledge of the world, and of him who made it; the study of the heart of man, and of him who has the hearts of all men in his hand, enable a minister to excel in the art of instruction; one kind of knowledge reflecting light upon the other. The knowledge of mankind, then, I may venture to a.s.sert, is, next to religion, one of the first requisites of a preacher; and I can not help ascribing the little success which has sometimes attended the ministry of even worthy men, to their want of this grand ingredient. It will diminish the use they might make of the great doctrines of our religion, if they are ignorant of the various modifications of the human character to which those doctrines are to be addressed.

"As no man ever made a true poet without this talent, one may venture to say that few without it have ever made eminent preachers. Dest.i.tute of this, the most elaborate addresses will be only random shot, which, if they hit, will be more owing to chance than to skill. Without this knowledge, warmed by Christian affection, guided by Christian judgment, and tempered with Christian meekness, a clergyman will not be able in the pulpit to accommodate himself to the various wants of his hearers; without this knowledge, in his private spiritual visits he will resemble those empirics in medicine who have but one method of treatment for all diseases, and who apply indiscriminately the same pill and the same drop to the various distempers of all ages, s.e.xes, and const.i.tutions. This spirit of accommodation does not consist in falsifying, or abridging, or softening, or disguising any truth; but in applying truth in every form, communicating it in every direction, and diverting it into every channel. Some good men seem sadly to forget that precept--_making a difference_--for they act as if all characters were exactly alike."

"You talk," said Mr. Tyrrel, "as if you would wish clergymen to depart from the singleness of truth, and preach two gospels."

"Far from it," replied Mr. Stanley, "but though truth is single, the human character is multiplied almost to infinity, and can not be addressed with advantage if it be not well understood. I am ashamed of having said so much on such a subject in presence of Dr. Barlow, who is silent through delicacy. I will only add, that a learned young clergyman is not driven for necessary relaxation to improper amus.e.m.e.nts. His mind will be too highly set to be satisfied with those light diversions which purloin time without affording the necessary renovation to the body and spirits, which is the true and lawful end of all amus.e.m.e.nt. In all circ.u.mstances, learning confers dignity on his character. It enables him to raise the tone of general conversation, and is a safe kind of medium with persons of a higher cla.s.s who are not religious; and it will always put it in his power to keep the standard of intercourse above the degrading topics of diversions, sports, and vulgar gossip."

"You see, Mr. Tyrrel," said the Doctor, "that a prudent combatant thinks only of defending himself on that side where he is a.s.saulted. If Mr.

Stanley's antagonist had been a vehement advocate for clerical learning as the great essential to his profession, he would have been the first to caution him against the pride and inflation which often attend learning, when not governed by religion. Learning, not so governed, might injure Christian humility, and thus become a far more formidable enemy to religion than that which it was called in to oppose."

Sir John said, smiling, "I will not apply to the clergy what Ra.s.selas says to Imlac, after he had been enumerating the numberless qualities necessary to the perfection of the poetic art--'Thou hast convinced me that no man can be a poet;'--but if all Stanley says be just, I will venture to a.s.sert that no common share of industry and zeal will qualify a young student for that sacred profession. I have indeed no experience on the subject, as it relates to the clerical order, but I conceive in general, that learning is the best human preservative of virtue; that it safely fills up leisure, and honorably adorns life, even where it does not form the business of it."

"Learning, too," said I, "has this strong recommendation, that it is the offspring of a most valuable virtue, I mean industry; a quality on which I am ashamed to see pagans frequently set a higher value than we seem to do."

"I believe, indeed," replied Sir John, "that the ancients had a higher idea of industry and severe application than we have. Tully calls them the _imperatoriae virtutes_, and Alexander said that slaves might indulge in sloth, but that it was a most royal thing to labor."

"It has been the error of sensible men of the world to erect talents and learning into idols, which they would have universally and exclusively worshiped. This has, perhaps, driven some religious men into such a fear of over-cultivating learning, that they do not cultivate it at all.

Hence the intervals between their religious employments, and intervals there must be while we are invested with these frail bodies, are languid and insipid, wasted in trifling and sauntering. Nay, it is well if this disoccupation of the intellect do not lead from sloth to improper indulgences."

"You are perfectly right," said Sir John; "our worthy friend Thompson is a living ill.u.s.tration of your remark. He was at college with us; he brought from thence a competent share of knowledge; has a fair understanding, and the manners of a gentleman. For several years past he has not only adopted a religious character, but is truly pious. As he is much in earnest, he very properly a.s.signs a considerable portion of his time to religious reading. But as he is of no profession, the intermediate hours often hang heavy on his hands. He continues to live in some measure in the world, without the inconsistency of entering into its pursuits; but having renounced the study of human learning, and yet accustoming himself to mix occasionally with general society, he has few subjects in common with his company, but is dull and silent in all rational conversation, of which religion is not the professed object. He takes so little interest in any literary or political discussion, however useful, that it is evident nothing but his good breeding prevents his falling asleep. At the same time, he scruples not to violate consistency in another respect, for his table is so elaborately luxurious, that it seems as if he were willing to add to the pleasures of sense what he deducts from those of intellect."

"I have often thought," said Mr. Stanley, "of sending him Dr. Barlow's _three sermons on industry in our calling as Christians, industry as gentlemen, and industry as scholars_; which sermons, by the way, I intended to have made my son read at least once a year, had he lived, that he might see the consistency, the compatibility, nay, the a.n.a.logy of the two latter with the former. I wish the spirit of these three discourses was infused into every gentleman, every scholar, and every Christian through the land. For my own part, I should have sedulously labored to make my son a sound scholar; while I should have labored still more sedulously to convince him that the value of learning depends solely on the purposes to which it is devoted. I would have a Christian gentleman able to beat the world at its own weapons, and convince it, that it is not from penury of mind, or inability to distinguish himself in other matters, that he applies himself to seek that wisdom which is from above; that he does not fly to religion as a shelter from the ignominy of ignorance, but from a deep conviction of the comparative vanity of that very learning which he yet is so a.s.siduous to acquire."

During this conversation, it was amusing to observe the different impressions made on the minds of our two college guests. Young Tyrrel, who, with moderate parts and slender application, had been taught to adopt some of his uncle's dogmas as the cheapest way of being wise, greedily swallowed his eulogium of clerical ignorance, which the young man seemed to feel as a vindication of his own neglected studies, and an encouragement to his own mediocrity of intellect. While the interesting young baronet, though silent through modesty, discovered in his intelligent eyes evident marks of satisfaction in hearing that literature, for which he was every day acquiring a higher relish, warmly recommended as the best pursuit of a gentleman, by the two men in the world for whose judgment he entertained the highest reverence. At the same time it raised his veneration for Christian piety, when he saw it so sedulously practiced by these advocates for human learning.

CHAPTER XXII.

During these conversations I remarked that Lucilla, though she commonly observed the most profound silence, had her attention always riveted on the speaker. If that speaker was Dr. Barlow, or her father, or any one whom she thought ent.i.tled to particular respect, she gently laid down her work, and as quietly resumed it when they had done speaking.

I observed to Sir John Belfield, afterward, as we were walking together, how modestly flattering her manner was when any of us were reading; how intelligent her silence; how well-bred her attention.